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| a spicy apple crisp for the first day of September |
I thought it was just going to be the 4 of us for a Labor Day cook-out. Then last night my son and daughter-in-law let us know that they'd be able to make it after all. A cook-out with just the 4 of us was going to be low-key, using up some foods from the fridge, cutting up apples, slicing some tomatoes and roasting hot dogs. With 6, not only would the meager leftovers not stretch for all, but we wanted to make this more special than the low-key plans. It's been a couple of months since we'd had our son and daughter-in-law over.
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| I used garden tomatoes (yellow and red), basil, celery, and oregano in the pasta salad |
Anyways, we've been scrambling to clean up the kitchen, deck and patio. I haven't spent much time on housekeeping during this deck rail painting project. I also needed to come up with a game plan for our cook-out dinner. I made a run to Grocery Outlet this morning. Grocery Outlet has the best prices on bacon and a good selection of different varieties of hot dogs and sausages. I bought a package of bacon for bacon bits, a rope of kielbasa, and one bottle of mineral water. At home I had ingredients for the buns, 1 package of beef hot dogs, rotini pasta, pepperoni slices, and garden vegetables to make a pasta salad, kale and dried cranberries for a salad with bacon bits, cooked pinto beans to make a dish of baked beans, apples and baking ingredients to make an apple crisp, garden fruit for a fruit salad, cans of flavored sparkling water, and ingredients to make s'mores.
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| kale, cranberry and bacon salad |
My daughters and husband have been helping me all day. Everything is looking delicious and clean. I'm now resting for a bit before putting on the final touches in 2 hours. And we'll all enjoy time catching up while sitting around the fire this evening.
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| hot dog buns just came out of the oven |
Did you or will you do anything special today? Do you go to more effort to prepare a meal when family outside your household is coming than just you and the at-home loved ones?
Wishing you a lovely Labor Day.
Wow. You pulled together quite the meal, and I know you enjoyed having your son and his wife over. We had a simple cookout yesterday with my sons. My husband was packing for a big trip, so we didn't do anything too involved. We had hot dogs and sausages, tomato and artichoke salad, watermelon, and cinnamon squares for dessert. The tomatoes and watermelon were from my sister's garden as the deer took care of most everything in our garden.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds delicious! Curious about the cinnamon squares? Are they cookies or cake? They sound yummy either way.
DeleteHi Live and Learn,
DeleteYour cook-out with your husband and sons sounds really nice. I'm amazed your sister can grow watermelon. You can't grow watermelon in a home garden in my area. How lucky for you she gifted you with one.
It's a shame the deer have made a feast of your garden. But at least they're are now well-fed in your immediate area.
I'm glad you had such a nice family get together with your sons.
Wow, you made a lovely meal! We don't do anything major for Labor Day; I had intended to have burgers but my husband misunderstood and got them out to thaw Sunday while I was out hiking, so we ate them for dinner that night instead. Our daughter who is a senior in college (we have a freshman this year as well) had her on-campus apartment flood on Saturday due to a malfunctioning sprinkler two floors above, so unexpectedly came home Sunday afternoon. She went kayaking with my husband and I and another couple (they and my husband all work on the military post so were off yesterday) Labor Day morning before heading back to school.
ReplyDeleteWe aren't really fancy with meals. For Christmas and Thanksgiving I may use a tablecloth, but have passed the china (from my Grandma) on to our oldest daughter already. When she and her husband and our granddaughter come over, we have a good meal but they aren't treated like company, just family (which I think is how they like it). If someone not family comes over, pretty rare for us, I do go to more trouble.
Hi Cat,
DeleteHow nice to have your daughter make an unexpected visit home! I hope you all had a wonderful time kayaking together.
That's a wonderful way to deal with family china that you don't really use. I hope your daughter and son-in-law can put it to use. Thanks for sharing how you handle "guests".
As always, your meals and events sound wonderful. I’m quite jealous of all your produce since our garden was such a bust this year. It’s great when the entire family can gather.
ReplyDeleteMy son, daughter, son in law, and son in law’s sister and 2 children (our “adopted” grandchildren) came for Labor Day weekend. Company is always the kick in the pants I need to do some extra cleaning along with fixing their special food requests. With hubby’s help we got the deep cleaning done.
The requests have become pretty standard- ham/cheese sliders, a breakfast casserole, chicken salad, pimento cheese and breakfast cookies. Then I plan possible dinners, recognizing that their plans are VERY fluid! Since this has become an annual tradition, I started working on the dishes in advance. For example, I cooked and cubed chicken for the salad, then put it back in the freezer to defrost and assemble once they arrived. Same with the sliders. Cookies were ready in a tin and cheese grated for pimento cheese.
Plans were extra variable this year. Daughter and SIL went deep sea fishing one day. No one else wanted to get up at 4:30 am to join them! They caught 24 mahi mahi!! So that became dinner Sunday night with other fish frozen for them to take back and to gift to neighbors.
They all headed back to DC on Monday morning for work and school the next day. Once they were on the road, I propped my feet up and rested!
Hi Lynn,
DeleteDid you ever have a full house! What a fun weekend. Although I can understand putting your feet up after everyone left.
I must say, you did a great job preparing in advance. I love how you prepped some things, but didn't completely finish, like with the chicken. If something had come up with their plans and chicken salad never fit into the weekend, the cooked and diced chicken could wait in the freezer for another opportunity.
Can I ask, what do you put into your breakfast cookies?
Lily, they have oatmeal, corn flakes and coconut plus the usual eggs, flour, sugar etc. They are a favorite. I’d be glad to share if it’s something you’d be interested in.
DeleteI forgot to mention how delicious your hot dog buns looked. I’ve made buns once. I ought to try them again at some point.
Hi Lynn,
DeleteI would love your recipe, if you have time. They sound delicious!
My mother saw this cookie recipe in the local paper and has been making them for our family for years. She is currently 94 1/2 and made them until moving to assisted living about 6 months ago! Hope you’ll enjoy them.
DeleteJoanne’s Breakfast Cookies-Yields 5 dozen
1 3/4 c all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 sticks of butter-room temp
2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar (I don’t pack it)*
3/4 c granulated sugar*
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1c quick cooking (not instant) oatmeal
2 c coarsely crushed corn flakes (3 cups of corn flakes=2 cups crushed)
1/2 c flaked coconut
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease baking sheets.
In large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat well. Add the vanilla and beat to combine. Gradually stir the flour mixture into the butter-sugar mixture. Beat well. Stir in the oatmeal, corn flakes and coconut with a spoon.
Drop the dough by teaspoonfuls on the prepared baking sheets. Space 2 inches apart. Bake the cookies until lightly browned, about 20 minutes, depending upon your oven. Remove to a rack to cool.
I use a cookie scoop which speeds the process as it makes a lot of cookies.
*I have reduced the sugar amounts a bit and they were still plenty sweet.
If you have any questions, let me know. Enjoy!
I was on a liquid diet on Monday but the local two kids wanted to come over for the day. I told them I wouldn't cook a big meal but later after thinking about it, I realized I had cooked pulled pork in the freezer along with buns. All I needed to do was warm that up and put BBQ sauce on it and they could all enjoy pulled pork sandwiches. I also had blueberry muffins frozen and two pieces of chocolate zucchini cake that they could choose from. They enjoyed their meal while I sipped on plain broth. My medical procedure was on Tuesday afternoon and that went really well and so now I'm back to enjoying some good food!
ReplyDeleteAlice
That was a great and quick way to pull together a meal. Well done.
DeleteI have pulled pork in my freezer. I had planned to have that for my family Labor Day weekend, but the freshly caught mahi mahi became the menu item instead. But that pork is in my freezer to be used on an occasion like you did.
Hi Alice,
DeleteI hope all is well with you. I'm glad your procedure went well and you can eat again.
You pulled together a great meal for your crew on such short notice. The mention of some chocolate zucchini cake has me drooling. And you just reminded me that we have a couple of blueberry muffins in our freezer, too. I think I know what will be for breakfast tomorrow.